By Currier Times Staff///

If you have been down to Walter M. Katz field recently, you may have noticed some changes. There is no more Colonel in the middle of the field and a patch of turf has been put over it. The Colonel facial image, which has been in the center of controversy since the fall of 2019, has rapidly been replaced, or covered-up, all over campus.

Katz Field has been the biggest of these replacements, and with this removal the school had officially covered up 100% of the Colonel logos that had been lingering around campus.  

According to some athletes, the turf that replaced the Colonel logo has left a lot to be desired. The new turf has created a small lip at certain points of where the Colonel was located. There are even remnants of the Colonel’s hat still visible from the bleachers.

Athletes have noticed the small lip right in the middle of the field.

“It’s real short-grained turf, and there’s one part right in the middle where you could potentially catch an extra cleat on the lip,” said Nick Barry, freshman member of the Curry Football Team,  “I haven’t had any issues with it yet, but I can definitely see it as an issue for other teams and people here.”

The cover-up certainly has not been the most discreet thing, as many students have seen the changes—not just on the field, but at many locations around campus.

“I noticed it as soon as they covered it up, you can still see the marks where it was before. It’s certainly not the most perfect cover-up ever,” said Barry.  

This isn’t the only Colonel that has been covered up recently either. With a stone cut-out being covered up with some cloth and duct tape down by the athletic fields, and then another title cut-out replaced with an entirely different color tile in Miller Gym. The modifications have left some students feeling it was haphazardly done.

The Colonel welcome stone has a cloth over the Colonel face on the stone, and where the Colonel image used to be on the floor in Miller Gym has also been covered up but not in an aesthetically pleasing way. Photo by Olivia Perron, Currier Times staff.

A survey several years ago asked Curry students if the Colonel should remain the nickname for Curry sports, but no new information has been relayed to students since the survey.

Questions still arise whether the turf will settle down once it continues to get used, or if the school is waiting for a brand new ‘CC’ logo to put on. As of publication, The Currier Times was still awaiting word from college officials on these questions.

There have not been any issues caused by the turf yet, but the concerns are still there for some Curry athletes.